I'm Killing Every Second (Till It Saves My Soul)
by XSilverLiningsX
Summary: [Modern Superheroes AU, Part 5: Prequel, pre-Hurk/Kai, established Arisha/Vella] It was four years, eleven months, and twenty nine days into his eight-year prison sentence within the Labyrinth when he received his first visitor.
1. Chapter 1

"INMATE D-790, TURN TO FACE THE WALL. SLOWLY WALK BACKWARDS TO THE DOOR AND PUT YOUR HANDS THROUGH THE OPENING. DO NOT RESIST. THERE ARE NO WARNING SHOTS."

The scratchy intercom blaring through the wall speaker in his cell cut off with a click. The food-tray opening to the cell door – solid metal at least three inches thick – slid open with a screech of rusted metal.

Hurk's chapped lips twitched into a slight frown before quickly disappearing into his customary blank look as he stood up from where he'd been lying down on his cot and thumbing idly through a dog-eared paperback. The man shuffled over to the door, the slack in the chains of the metal cuffs between his ankles not enough for a full stride, and awkwardly stuck his hands out through the only gap large enough.

Two pairs of gloved hands roughly twisted his wrists back further and tied a thick leather restraint around both of his hands before adding on an even thicker metal cuff that hummed audibly. Immediately, Hurk felt the familiar sensation of his energy plummeting down to a dangerously low level that sent a shot of utter exhaustion through his nerves. The guards that had tied him up shoved his hands back through the opening and he took a step forward, his back straightening as the electronically-operated locks on his door engaged with a hiss.

Once the door slid open, four guards descended upon him. Two of them grabbed his arms in strong grips while another slammed a bucket over his head. The last guard had a staff-like instrument with a large, circular ring at the end crackling with electricity and studded with deadly spikes at least four inches long; that went around his neck, hovering menacingly above his skin as a warning against any sudden movements.

"MOVE." The modulated voice of the guard behind him hissed through the helmet.

Hurk took a careful step forward, the chains of his ankle cuffs dragging against the concrete flooring, and the guards at his arms pushed him to move faster.

A few minutes later, one of the guards stopped to punch in a code to a door. The alarm over the door beeped and the hiss of old hydraulics alerted Hurk to the fact that he wasn't in the solitary confinement wing anymore. The guards hastily pushed him down to sit onto a metal chair welded into the floor, chained his ankles and wrists to the also-welded metal table, and then removed the bucket. All of the guards quickly left the room after that, leaving him alone with…

Hurk blinked several times at the sudden influx of blinding fluorescent light, and then let a lackadaisical grin pull at the corners of his mouth once his eyes adjusted.

"Well, what's a pretty lady like yourself doin' in a shithole like this? Don't try and tell me that you're my lawyer, hon, 'cause you ain't one."

A dirty-blonde young woman with a pleasant-looking face smiled politely at him without a single ounce of fear in her body language. Her navy blue blouse had a high collar that covered her throat and her almost-hidden hairband had flowery detailing and two slight raises indicating a cutesy pair of cat ears. Hurk almost wanted to lean back a bit to see if she was wearing a short skirt and thigh-high boots, because this woman was _nowhere_ near the typical type of visitors that showed up in the Labyrinth.

The woman's smile promptly fell from her face as she flipped through a folder in her possession. Hurk felt a hint of unease crawl up his spine at the sudden change.

"Inmate D-790, birth name Hurk, no listed last name. Foster care from two years of age until eighteen. Joined the Red Tyrants gang at fifteen and served time in juvenile detention for the misdemeanors of assault, petty theft, vandalism, and possession of night shade with the intention of distribution. At the age of 19, received a six-year sentence for transporting illegally-obtained weapons for gang usage – a felony violation of PC 186.22 subsection B – and an extension of two years for an assault with a deadly weapon that led to the hospitalization of one correctional officer and three inmates. Current status: age 24 and indefinitely housed in administrative segregation from general population within solitary confinement. Eligibility for good time or parole: none."

With a shit-eating grin, Hurk leaned back in his chair as much as he could with the chains binding him. "Should I be lookin' over my shoulder for Bad Cop right 'bout now?"

"You have quite the slim and unimpressive record for a so-called violent recidivist. I expected worse, to be honest, but I guess I can work with that." The woman's polite smile didn't waver in the least.

"Ouch. I take it back. Where's Good Cop? I'm all for a donut and some soda to butter me up." Hurk kept his grin up and adopted a lazy slouching posture, but his mind was working overtime to read the hidden motives from the woman sitting across from him.

"Inmate D-790, I am not with the police. It would be in your best interests to let me talk without being interrupted during every other sentence." The woman opened up the briefcase sitting innocently on top of the metal table and pulled out a sheaf of papers and a pen.

"Alright, shoot. I've got all the time in the world."

The woman shot him a baleful look. "I am an agent of the Royal Army Intelligence, and I am here to offer you a deal that even you will find foolish to refuse."


	2. Chapter 2

"Agent D-790, status report."

"Not even a friendly _what's up_ , Delia? I'm disappointed. I thought we were making progress on your socialization skills."

"You better have a **_damn_** good reason for what happened yesterday."

The smile on his face quickly dropped when it was apparent that his prickly (but pretty-faced) handler wasn't in the mood for jokes. With a sigh, Hurk adjusted the sunglasses on his face and leaned against the door of his beat-up Jeep. He turned his face to the early dawn casting a golden glow onto rippling waters of the Hoarfrost River; beyond it were the smoking remnants of a city that had been unceremoniously sacked and pillaged by a Fomorian Army ambush approximately six hours ago.

"Just for the record, I wasn't anywhere near Ainle when the shit hit the fan. They'd stationed me at the camp at the Southern Rock Cliffs for two months right before this mess."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Look, there was _nothing_ about this attack on the schedules. Even you know that Emuloch's not exactly the most subtle of fomors, but I'm telling you that someone else was behind the ambush. The city was practically a fortress – where was the Royal Army during all of this?"

"What are you implying, Agent D-790?"

A quick glance (behind the protection of his sunglasses) showed that Delia's fingers were twitching, no doubt wanting very much to reach for the bastard sword holstered to her back.

"I'm implying that the Royal Army turned tail and ran like cowards, leaving the citizens to protect themselves against an army of goblins and vampires. When I'd been shifted onto burial duty, I didn't see a single soldier among the piles of civilians. Goddess… there were even children…"

"But did you obtain the data you were sent here for?"

"Are you deaf or something? I just spent four hours burying innocents and all you can ask me is if I'd gotten the damn data?" Hurk took off his sunglasses in angered bewilderment, his short temper starting to boil.

"Casualties are expected in our line of work. Do you, or do you not, have the data?" Delia's lips twitched slightly, but still did not betray any emotion beyond that of her default pleasantly-serene expression.

"Yes, I've got your fucking data." Hurk shoved a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a USB drive. He barely refrained from throwing it straight at the woman's head when passing it over.

"Good. Your mission's primary objective has not changed. Continue operating within the established parameters." With the data in her possession, Delia smiled placidly as she dismissed her agent with a wave of her hand.

Muttering under his breath, Hurk reigned in the urge to shudder as he climbed back into his car. Trying but failing to shake off the nagging feeling at the back of his skull, he gunned the engine and drove off from the meeting place with the pedal firmly pressed to the floor.

* * *

"Oi gramps, what're we havin' for dinner?"

"Make your lazy ass useful and get the bags in the trunk. There's two more. Where's your sister?"

With both hands full of groceries and cartons of soy milk, Hurk slammed into the tiny apartment that he'd been allocated by the Fomorian Army after a year of 'exemplary' service in the Hoarfrost Hollows. The apartment consisted of little more than a bedroom with cracks in the ceiling, a bathroom that had dripping faucets, a kitchenette that featured a working stove and a semi-broken microwave, and a cramped living area with a sagging couch and an old flatscreen that definitely had seen better days.

He was also (permanently) sharing the apartment with two annoying 10-year-old orphans.

Goddess help him.

Sylas blocked the older man's path to the kitchenette with a typical adolescent shrug. "I dunno. She said somethin' about rats and hauled ass outta here. Ooh, is that—!"

"Goddamnit, **_MOVE_** , you punk!"

With a cackle, the boy scrambled in the direction of the open door with the package of gummy worms that he'd successfully nabbed.

"That's gonna ruin your fuckin' dinner!"

A faint " _No it's not!_ " in the distance was the only response he got.

With a resigned sigh, Hurk set down the rest of the groceries on the table. When he turned around, two bags of groceries were sitting innocently on the floor. A shadow with long hair tied into girlish pigtails silently slipped past the corner of his eyes and Hurk pinched the bridge of his nose in the hopes of staving off the impending headache building behind his eyeballs.

"Oi, Lynn."

The shadow froze in the middle of tiptoeing.

Hurk bent over to pick up the bags sitting on the floor, wincing when his back protested loudly at the movement. "You still need to practice that footwork, I can practically hear you from a mile away. Your brother's gonna need to stop grinning like a damn fool too, if he wants to get any better at acting."

"Aww, and I thought we were doin' real good this time." The girl popped up from around the corner with a cutesy pout on her face. She skipped over to Hurk and helped with putting away some of the groceries.

"Both of you baby spies still got a long way to go and a lot more to learn. Don't think you'll be sneakin' away from me any time soon. Sylas, get your scrawny ass in here and stop ghosting the damn window like a creep."

"Pfft, took you long en— shit! Eugh! That's _nasty_! What the _heck_ did I land on!"

A blur streaked down past the window and the crash of a body hitting a pile of garbage bags was like music to Hurk's ears as an easy grin stretched over his face. With a giggle, Lynn promptly dashed out the front door – no doubt to shove her almost-brother's face into the mess that he'd fallen right into.

"Stop gigglin' and help me get outta—oh, that's gross!"

The grin on Hurk's face only got wider as he pulled out a pot and a package of spaghetti noodles.


	3. Chapter 3

The place that the Fomors had finally transferred him and his two preteen spies into was somehow even crappier than his original apartment. Aptly named _The Sewers_ of Rocheste, the entire neighborhood block smelled, looked, _and_ felt worse than a garbage dump. Every ramshackle building oozed puddles of brackish technicolored water from large cracks and the hazardous way each cramped apartment was connected by twisting and dimly-lit corridors filled with debris and garbage that were practically melted into the floors and the walls.

From where he was mopping up yet another nasty puddle that had formed in the middle of the living room (he'd just fixed the crack in the ceiling with some industrial grade plaster), Hurk looked up when the rusty metal grate that was the door screeched open to allow two giggly women inside.

His two new 'roommates' were absolutely deplorable. Not only did those two barely chip in their bit for rent and food, the women could hardly keep their hands off each other the moment they stepped into the semi-privacy of the apartment.

Hurk rolled his eyes. "Oi – Arisha, Vella, keep your tongues and hands where I can see 'em. The brats are comin' back in a few mins."

The two women promptly plopped down onto the couch and started making out. Two different hands raised up to flip him the bird.

"Just… ugh. Fine." Hurk hastily mopped up the last of the puddle and left to put away the mop and bucket in the hallway closet.

"You're so tense, man! Join us, we don't mind~!" The low croon came from the living room, followed by a sultry moan.

"God, when the hell did I become the responsible one?" Hurk muttered to himself as he rolled his eyes again. Walking into the kitchen, he opened the fridge and pulled out a tray of half-made lasagna that was meant for dinner.

The metal grate door screeched open again to admit two sets of noisy footsteps.

"We're b— _ack_! My precious eyes!"

"What—whoa! Gaah! Did not need to see _that_!"

Lynn and Sylas, both 12-and-going-on-precious-adolescence, scrambled into the kitchen while clutching at too-full plastic bags of groceries and snacks (that they probably stole, since Hurk didn't remember giving either of them their weekly allowance yet).

The bags were promptly dumped by the fridge and the two kids rummaged through one of them, pulling out way too many boxes of candy and chocolate.

"Oi, how many times have I told you two not to bring that shit back. We need _real_ food."

A toothy smirk from Sylas was the only indication he received before a box of melon-flavored Hi-Chews hit the side of his head and bounced off to land on the floor.

"Relax gramps, we got your hard-ass fruity stuff too."

"And some matcha Pocky! I can't believe we found some!" Lynn popped up with a blindingly bright smile and an armful of chocolate-mushroom-biscuit-things cradled in her arms.

The box of Pocky hit his head again with startling accuracy, this time falling into the uncovered lasagna. When Hurk turned to yell at the brats for throwing shit at him, the kids had already scampered off to their room while snickering and giggling.

"Fucking brats."

* * *

It was roughly 2:30 in the morning when Hurk was able to sneak out of the apartment unnoticed and head out to decrepit docks to relay some updates to his handler. With the hood of his black jacket drawn up and dressed in ragged jeans and sneakers, he looked as inconspicuous as any other hoodlum wandering the streets at night.

The burner flip-phone was planted right where it should be and Hurk wasted no time in dialing the number that he knew by muscle memory now.

"D-790. Victor, India, November, Delta, India, Charlie, Tango, Uniform, Sierra."

A click, and then the dulcet tones of his frosty handler came out of the tinny speaker.

"Agent. Any updates?"

"FA's planning something big with TD. Money launderin' and drugs, probably. It's a mole-haven, though – gotta be more careful than usual."

"Noted. Anything else?"

"Not now."

"Continue within pre-established mission parameters."

"Yes ma'am."

The line cut. Hurk sighed, flipped the cellphone shut, and dropped it to the ground. Quickly, he brought his foot down on the phone and crushed it into unrecoverable pieces before kicking the remnants off the edge of the dock and into the swirling depths of the waters below.

"You… you, how could you!"

Hurk froze for a moment before turning around. He immediately recognized the voice.

Those two _brats_ stepped out from their hiding place behind a stack of metal barrels. The weak beam of a flashlight illuminated Hurk just enough so that the kids had no doubt who they were confronting.

"You're betraying all of us to those… those Royal Army _dogs_!" Sylas took a step forward, his entire posture threatening and angry even while wearing pajamas and a thin jacket. In his clenched hands, he held all of the knives that he could find in the kitchen. Next to the boy, Lynn held the mag-light steady. Her expression was blank save for the betrayed frown that tugged at Hurk's heartstrings.

Hurk forced himself to ignore the sudden cold sweat that took over and remain calm. Despite having been trained to be infiltrators and spies, the two brats were first and foremost _children_ , and there was no way he would ever forgive himself if he had to take them down the hard way. He took a step forward, not too much to seem aggressive but just enough to close some distance between himself and the kids.

"It's not personal. It's business."

Another step.

"D-don't come any closer!" Lynn's frown was wobbling from the effort it took for her to keep from crying.

"You two don't know the full story." Hurk slowly raised his hands up to show that he had no weapons.

"We'll report you to Shakarr right now. I swear!" Sylas raised his knives up, preparing to throw.

"Don't start making any rash decisions, _boy_." Hurk knew he would be able to dodge the knives if the kid decided to throw them, but he hoped that it wouldn't come to that.

"No! You don't get to tell me, tell us what to do anymore, you traitor!"

"Sylas…" Lynn's hold on the mag-light wavered. "Maybe… maybe we should let him talk?"

"No! I'm going to kill him right here, right now! It's what we trained for all this time, remember!"

"No, you aren't. In fact, nobody's killing anyone tonight." Hurk took another step. He was just about in range to disarm if he charged.

"Oh yeah? You wanna try me, gramps!" Sylas raised a knife and prepared to let it fly.

Hurk shifted his stance minutely before dashing forward much more quickly than he usually would when sparring with the brats. In the time the knife was just about to leave Sylas' hand, Hurk was already right in front of him with one hand outstretched to grab the kid's neck and the other slapping the knives out of the boy's surprise-weakened grip.

He raised the boy up high enough so that he couldn't touch the ground with his feet. Sharp nails scrabbled at his hand and wrist, gouging deep enough to leave marks, as the boy choked for air.

Lynn was frozen in place and shaking, staring with wide eyes as her brother-in-everything-but-blood kicked and scratched with all of his might. Hurk just simply absorbed all of the minor damage without so much as a blink – it was as if the anger and terror-fueled force behind Sylas' frantic clawing and kicking didn't even register _at all_.

After a moment, Sylas sagged and stopped fighting.

"Done with your tantrum? Good."

Hurk dropped the boy onto the ground next to the scattered knives. He turned his head to glance at Lynn, who swallowed and took a step back with shaking legs.

"I've promised myself to keep both of you brats as far from the conflict as possible given the circumstances, but your nosey selves always seem to find the worst times to barge in. Look, I can't tell you everything – at least, not now. You two need to understand that with what I'm doing right now, as long as I'm still breathing, you are under **_my_** protection and I'm doing everything possible to keep it that way."

"Protection?" Sylas coughed and held his throat, squeaking up at Hurk with a glare. "You're betraying, not protecting!"

Hurk gave Sylas a _look_. The boy gulped; he could've sworn that the man's right eye glowed a demonic red for a split second.

"You know what the punishment for a human joining the Fomorian Army is? Execution. You know what the punishment for a fomor joining the Royal Army and the humans is? Execution. I don't suppose either of you have ever seen human children – other than yourselves – working for the Fomorian Army?"

"N-no." Lynn's mousy squeak was sharp in the heavy silence.

"Remember Ainle? Remember the piles of civilians – eldery, women, children – left after the battle? Remember how the Royal Army retreated with their tails between their legs when they saw the army marching towards the city and left those who couldn't fight like lambs to the slaughter? The Fomorians have a take-no-prisoners policy, so tell me: why are you two alive?"

Sylas and Lynn stared. Honestly? They had no idea. They just knew they were a special case.

"I did my fair share of burying innocents, thanks to both the Fomorian Army _and_ the Royal Army, but I just couldn't let them execute two eight-year-old goddamned brats for having the ill fortune to survive that shitfest. I couldn't take you to the Royal Army either – that would've be a death sentence too, as that would have required them to acknowledge that they left the fucking city to burn. So, two kids that had an executioner's axe hanging over their necks from both sides. I might be a traitor and a killer, sure, but even I wouldn't stoop so low just to cover up senseless murder and cowardice."

Hurk's hands went down to his sides and curled into fists, his entire body tense and his eyes hard and emotionless.

"I fucking went to Shakarr and groveled, on my hands and knees. Begged him to consider giving you two to me, to train into spies. Everything I did, I did it to make you two become useful and indispensable so you two could _survive_. Goddess, I was already on a short leash and actually persuading Shakarr to let me keep you two just made it even shorter. I was practically the goddamned fomor's _side bitch_ for years."

Sylas stood up and shared a wide-eyed glance with Lynn. The knives on the ground were completely forgotten to the boy as he took in the exasperated rant Hurk was going off on.

"Fuck, even _prison_ had been better than living in this damn hellhole! Sometimes I swear I should've never taken the offer and just waited out my time. I only had three more years left…" Hurk ran a hand over his face, sighing tiredly. "But then, if I hadn't taken the offer, who knows what could've happened to you two ungrateful brats? What would've happened if it was a fomor that had found you two hiding in the basement, instead of me?"

Dead silence.

"Y-you were in prison? For w-what?" With tears in her eyes, Lynn took a step forward, caught up in the moment. She dropped the mag-light.

Hurk shrugged. "It doesn't matter anymore. I'm in way too deep, but there's no way to go except forward. If you two aren't going to try to kill me anymore, can you be trusted to make sure you don't say jack shit until I can get you two to talk to my handler?"

Sylas stared down at his feet, rubbing at the bruise that was undoubtedly starting to form around his neck. "Y-yeah… I just…"

"As I said earlier, don't make any rash decisions before you get the full story, you short-fused brat." Hurk's hand landed on the kid's head, tousling the messy bedhead.

Lynn's small body slammed into Hurk's side and thin arms wrapped around his waist. The sniffling started. "So… so you… that's why…"

"Ainle was a mess when I got there. I was too late to save anyone except for you and your brother. I'm… I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Our foster parents were shittier than you." Sylas rubbed the back of his sleeve against his eyes.

After a while, Hurk patted Lynn's head and pried her off of his midsection. "C'mon brats, it's way past your bedtimes. We can deal with my attempted murder by butter knife tomorrow. Sylas, you can bet your ass that you're going to clean all of those once we get back. I ain't eating food with dirt-covered utensils."


	4. Chapter 4

" ** _AAAAAAAAH!_** "

The ear-piercing shriek had Hurk rolling off the couch and sprinting into the bedroom that Sylas and Lynn shared within the span of three seconds.

What he did not expect was for _Sylas_ to be the one screaming on the floor, while Lynn was mutely staring in horror at the spreading maroon stain on the bed sheets.

"Ah. Just. Wait. Don't move." Hurk slapped the back of Sylas' head to get him to shut his mouth. "Actually, no, Lynn go sit on the toilet, I'll get—"

Hurk barged into Arisha and Vella's room, ignoring the hisses from the naked women who were _definitely_ in the middle of something on their Queen-sized bed, and headed straight for the adjoined bathroom. A quick rummage in the cabinet under the sink got him what he needed.

Hurk knocked on the only other bathroom's door. "Lynn? I have a thing that'll probably help."

He got a meek "Okay" in response. Hurk cracked open the door just enough to shove the box of tampons inside before slamming it shut again.

"Is she hurt? What's going on? That was so much blood. Is she going to die?" Sylas popped up by his elbow with a panicked look on his too-young face.

Hurk sighed. The brats were fourteen years old now. The _Talk_ was something he'd been putting off for a while under the assumption of that they were still too young, but with Lynn's… predicament… it seemed like that was no longer an option.

"Kid, she's not gonna die. First things first, I'm getting those two women to talk to her about puberty while you go and bleach her bed. Make sure to open the windows when you're bleaching the sheets and the mattress. When I get back from the store, you and I are going out to have a little chat."

"Oh. Oh no. No, no, no I am not—" Sylas' expression went from disgust to horror and then back to disgust in about 0.2 seconds flat.

"You should know how to get blood stains out of clothing already, so it shouldn't be too hard." Hurk's tone brokered absolutely no chance for argument or dissent, and the boy slumped as he went to fetch the supplies.

Hurk barged back into Arisha and Vella's room. Thankfully, both women were in the process of dressing and thus were mildly decent.

"I need both of you to talk to Lynn about puberty. She started her… yeah."

"So that's what the ruckus was about." Vella snorted as she adjusted her tube top.

"Hmm. Well, alright. The girl does have a right to know these sorts of things, and _not_ from a man. Where is she now?" Arisha buttoned up her mesh vest top with a raised eyebrow.

"Bathroom. I'm going out to get her some of her own stuff. The boy's cleaning up the sheets."

"Fine. Just don't go all berserk on us after we talk to her." Vella smirked as she waggled her finger in Hurk's direction.

"Keep your language PG-13, please. Arisha, make sure your girlfriend doesn't accidentally turn my kid into a pirate-prostitute."

Hurk ducked in time to avoid a flying shoe aimed at his head as he left the women's bedroom. 

* * *

The 'feminine hygiene' aisle of the nearest drug store was rather small compared to a typical chain store, but at least Hurk recognized the brand of tampons and pads that his roommates used. He didn't quite know the difference between the absorbencies, so he just picked a few boxes that had a combination of everything and threw it into his shopping basket.

As an afterthought, Hurk grabbed a generic bag of wrapped chocolates. This particular bag was the last one on the sale shelf.

Someone had also grabbed the bag at the same time as he did.

Hurk glared at the other man.

The other man glared right back at him.

"I was here first." The other man's voice was low and harsh-sounding, as if he had a particularly bad smoking habit. The man himself, however, looked just around his own age, was dressed in all black, and had his hair swept back in a careful style that made sure the full force of his cold glare wouldn't be obscured in any way.

"I need this. It's a life-or-death situation." Hurk drew himself up straight; he was a good few inches taller than the other man, and hopefully that would work to his advantage.

"My friend is in a coma in the hospital and his wife is just about ready to annihilate me for suggesting that she go home and rest." The other man snorted. He didn't let go of the bag of chocolate.

Hurk noticed the bouquet of flowers and the 'Get Well' card sitting in the other man's basket. "My daughter started her period this morning."

The man blinked, his mouth open for a retort that didn't quite make it, and then let go of the bag of chocolate. "My condolences to you and your wife."

"I'm a single father." Hurk didn't really know why he felt the need to put that bit in, but he did and now he couldn't take it back.

The man took a slow look of Hurk from head to toe and then drawled a disbelieving, "…Really? You, a _single_ father?"

"Yeah. Um. I'm older than I look." Hurk could feel his ears starting to burn. He needed to leave, right now, before he embarrassed himself even further. He shoved the bag of chocolate into his basket and headed to the cashier's desk.

It was only then that Hurk realized he'd forgotten his wallet back at the apartment and was short four dollars in cash.

Something brushed against his arm – Hurk barely kept himself from jumping a foot up in the air in surprise – and a crisp five-dollar bill slid across the counter. Hurk looked over his shoulder to see the man from earlier with an unimpressed look on his face.

"Thanks, man."

"…No problem."

The man returned to the aisles, presumably to continue shopping.

It was only until three hours later – after he'd arrived back at the apartment to find Sylas stuck underneath Lynn's mattress from where it'd fallen on top of him and Lynn bawling her eyes out at the 'wonders of womanhood' that Arisha and Vella were describing with evil smirks – that Hurk had a moment to take a breather away from the hectic whirlwind that was this particular Tuesday of their ragtag household.

At the moment, he was in the bathroom and giving the toilet a deep clean while he was waiting for the bleached sheets to dry. The apartment was silent, as the women had left to terrorize the city and Sylas had practically ran out of the apartment after the incredibly awkward 'Birds and the Bees' Talk that he'd given. Lynn was napping on the couch, on top of a pile of towels and surrounded by chocolate wrappers; the poor girl had pretty much demolished the entire bag of chocolate within half an hour.

Once the toilet was sparkling in cleanliness, Hurk hauled himself up to his feet, cracked his back a few times, and then set aside the cleaning supplies as he washed his hands. Then he went in search for his missing wallet. Where had he left it again?

Oh right, on the kitchen counter. Hurk picked it up and thumbed through the fold. It was as he suspected – someone (99.9% sure it was Vella) had swiped up all of his cash and the last non-expired coupon for a burger and shakes at a fast food joint. With a sigh, Hurk stuffed the wallet back into the pocket of his pants.

A crinkle of paper caught his attention. Taking out his wallet, he reached into the pocket and felt a scrap of paper that certainly hadn't been there before.

A string of hastily-scribbled numbers and one word scrawled in neat handwriting: _DILF._

Hurk squinted at the note. What was a DILF? It looked and sounded like some kind of annoying teenager-speech, so he'd probably ask Vella later. However, he could feel a heat starting to burn at his ears and neck when he belatedly realized that _oh Goddess, that man gave him his **number**?_


	5. Chapter 5

_Facial bones crack and cave in from the force of his punches._

 _Blood is everywhere, almost black in the moonlight, and streams from his mouth and nose. His right eye **burns** with unholy rage._

 _"Don't—"_

 _Crack! The man underneath him struggles ferociously, spitting and gagging from a blood-filled mouth._

 _"Fucking—"_

 _Crunch! The man underneath him roars in pain and manages to slam a fist into his jaw. Hurk keeps going._

 _"Touch—"_

 _The hands scrabbling at his arms finally flop to the ground, claw-nails rusty red. Good._

 _"ME!"_

 _Hurk aims a final punch that sends the man underneath him into hard-won unconsciousness, one black and one glowing red eye rolling up back into his head._ _He's breathing heavily as he gets to his feet. There's noise, someone's talking but he can't figure out where it's coming form  
_

 _Hurk spits on the unconscious man and laughs. "You fuckin' wanted to learn it the hard way, Red Tyrant. I ain't nobody's bitch!"_

 _Another noise, and then his entire body locks uselessly as he is flooded with electricity crackling by his head. Something locks around his neck and he's going down to the ground, face-first—_

 _Hurk can barely blink once, twice, and then the blood-splattered alleyway disappears._

 _White. Surrounding him are security guards with electric batons and visors, a few with restraining staffs. There's three limp bodies on the floor – one security, two nameless inmates that were twice his bulk and mass._

 _Another jolt of electricity and Hurk seizes again._

 _All he can think is **fuck I can't breathe** —_

Hurk hits the floor of his apartment with a heavy thump, the sheets tangled around his legs and his entire body covered in a cold sweat. He gets up onto shaking legs and heads into the bathroom on autopilot. He doesn't bother to turn on the light.

He's in the middle of wiping his face off with his towel when he hears a creak next the doorway. Hurk barely catches himself from lunging at it with his fist raised aggressively. Instead, his right hand goes to clench around the sink basin hard enough that he could feel the porcelain just about to bend under the pressure.

A tiny, sleepy head pokes shyly from the doorway. "I heard a noise?"

"I just needed some water. Go back to bed, kid." Hurk gently puts his other hand on the girl's fragile head and ruffles the soft hair there.

"…I can't."

Hurk refrains from sighing. "Bad dream, huh."

"Yes."

"Wanna talk about it?" The words fall clumsily out of his mouth. He sure as hell didn't want to talk about his _own_ nightmares…

"…Can I have some milk?" The girl's hugging herself now. The dream must've been pretty bad this time.

"You know what? I'll do you one better than milk and make you some hot cocoa. How does that sound?"

"What is 'hot cocoa'?"

"You don't know what hot cocoa is?"

The girl shuffles her feet a little. "M-mommy didn't like that sort of stuff in the house, I guess. We never had it."

"Well, that means you're getting' hot cocoa, now." Hurk exhales slowly. Some of the tension curled in his shoulders and back releases, but not all of it. He could deal with it later.

Right now, he had to chase away the nightmares coming from an eight-year-old girl that had lived through more hardships than he had in the same amount of time. It was the least he could do, after all.


End file.
